Question for all WoT fans:

[kneegrows]

What happens when some one opens a portal to the location a few feet behind them (so the portal shows themselves in front of the portal) and shoots balefirethrough it at themselves? :wink:ANSWER IT !

[Morden]

I doubt anything happens because they would be balefired away before they formed the portal, and without forming the portal they couldnt have been balefired, very large balescream caused by the paradox though I suspect.

[YourNewDragonAndGod]

It's like dividing by zero. The world just explodes. Victory to the dark one but he has nothing left to rule.

[TNine]

You are balefired away until before you open the portal, so your thread is burned back until before you opened the portal, and you will have never balefired yourself, but you are still balefired. The fact that, according to the Pattern, it never happened, does not change the fact that your thread has been burned beyond reach.

 

That doesn't really make sense--which is EXACTLY why balefire is so damn dangerous. It prevents the universe from making sense.

[Durinax]

you enter the twilight zone

[kneegrows]

I doubt anything happens because they would be balefired away before they formed the portal, and without forming the portal they couldnt have been balefired, very large balescream caused by the paradox though I suspect.

Well if they never opened the portal they would have no recollection of what happened and therefore open a new portal, starting a never-ending cycle :)

[Suttree]

This actually has already been answered by RJ in a classic fashion and it still very much applies...

 

Interview: Feb 26th, 2003

 

tarvalon.net Q&A (Verbatim)

Question

 

If I were to open a gateway in front of me that opened behind me, and I balefired myself, what would happen?

Robert Jordan

 

Young lady, you are entirely too obsessed and have far too much time. You need to get some sort of life. I suggest you go have an intense love affair. Doesn't matter with who, be it man, woman, or German Shepherd.

[TristanWebb]

Balefire doesn't negate the effects of balefire. So your thread would be burned out and all the usual effects of balefire would occur.

[mwayneknight]

You would find yourself in another demension as one of the three dragon rides for Deanerys in George RR Martins A song of ice and fire books.

[Byzantine279]

I agree with RJ's response. Besides, the simple answer is the pattern would protect itself and a small bird would get in the way every-single-time.

[Danjaman]

I doubt anything happens because they would be balefired away before they formed the portal, and without forming the portal they couldnt have been balefired, very large balescream caused by the paradox though I suspect.

Well if they never opened the portal they would have no recollection of what happened and therefore open a new portal, starting a never-ending cycle :)

False; when Mat is revived in tFoH after Rahvin's death he distinctly remembers dieing, and yet knows that what he remembers didn't happen.

 

You are balefired away until before you open the portal, so your thread is burned back until before you opened the portal, and you will have never balefired yourself, but you are still balefired. The fact that, according to the Pattern, it never happened, does not change the fact that your thread has been burned beyond reach.

 

Exactly right, nothing can re-weave a balefire'd thread. If B balefires C, then A balefires B, C will not be revived.

"But if B never existed, how could C have died?"

The pattern wouldn't read "C died at that moment", instead C would be entirely absent from the pattern; he's not dead - he never existed.

[Sid]

False; when Mat is revived in tFoH after Rahvin's death he distinctly remembers dieing, and yet knows that we he remembers didn't happen.

I care nothing for the subject of this thread, but will point out that this particular idea is incorrect.

 

The Threads Burn[/i]']He did not want to put her down, but he did. So he could hug Mat. Or try to.

 

Mat fended him off. "What's the matter with you? You'd think you thought we were dead. Not that we weren't, almost. Being a general has to be safer than this!"

[Wool-headed lummox]

Young lady, you are entirely too obsessed and have far too much time. You need to get some sort of life. I suggest you go have an intense love affair. Doesn't matter with who, be it man, woman, or German Shepherd.

Wow, what a douchy way to say "I have no idea".

It's a curious logical puzzle, if nothing else. Nothing to do with being obsessed.

[TristanWebb]

Apparently it is a reference to a well known old school porn star.

[Pinzarn]

Young lady, you are entirely too obsessed and have far too much time. You need to get some sort of life. I suggest you go have an intense love affair. Doesn't matter with who, be it man, woman, or German Shepherd.

Wow, what a douchy way to say "I have no idea".

It's a curious logical puzzle, if nothing else. Nothing to do with being obsessed.

 

I read questions like this that you are thinking WAAAAAY to much about a make believe world. I don't think RJ's comment is too far off base.

[Hagazussa]

Probably what will happen is a demonstration of why the forces of both the Shadow and the Light decided to stop using balefire, reality will unravel in that area. When that is said most likely nothing will happen as a channeler can not use weaves on themselves, but you can be sure that reality would not appreciate the attempt.

 

Aww I need to get my gaming group together, questions like these makes me want to play Mage the Ascension. :P

[Mr Ares]

You are balefired away until before you open the portal, so your thread is burned back until before you opened the portal, and you will have never balefired yourself, but you are still balefired. The fact that, according to the Pattern, it never happened, does not change the fact that your thread has been burned beyond reach.

Exactly right, nothing can re-weave a balefire'd thread. If B balefires C, then A balefires B, C will not be revived.

"But if B never existed, how could C have died?"

The pattern wouldn't read "C died at that moment", instead C would be entirely absent from the pattern; he's not dead - he never existed.

That's not true at all. Balefire does not stop you ever having existed, it only kills you in the past. C died before he had balefire thrown at him, but he still lived up until that point.

[SylvanFox]

This same question was basically on some program I watched the other day. Only, they were talking about what would happen if someone found a way to create a wormhole, and shot himself through the wormhole a few minutes before he opened it. This is basically the same as the "Grandfather Paradox".

 

Apparently, stuff like this has led some scientists to believe that time travel will always be impossible, which must mean they thought about it a lot. There are multiple theories on just how this could work.

 

So... maybe it's not that lame to think about balefiring yourself through a gateway.

[Barid Bel Medar]

You are balefired away until before you open the portal, so your thread is burned back until before you opened the portal, and you will have never balefired yourself, but you are still balefired. The fact that, according to the Pattern, it never happened, does not change the fact that your thread has been burned beyond reach.

Exactly right, nothing can re-weave a balefire'd thread. If B balefires C, then A balefires B, C will not be revived.

"But if B never existed, how could C have died?"

The pattern wouldn't read "C died at that moment", instead C would be entirely absent from the pattern; he's not dead - he never existed.

That's not true at all. Balefire does not stop you ever having existed, it only kills you in the past. C died before he had balefire thrown at him, but he still lived up until that point.

 

RJ actually did answer this one.

 

 

 

 

INTERVIEW: Sep 20th, 1999

Brisbane Signing Report - Joel Gilmore (Paraphrased)

 

 

ROBERT JORDAN

Ok, first and foremost we have an answer to the balefire-balefire paradox. If A balefires B, then C balefires A, B WILL come back alive again. I explored this quite thoroughly with him, getting him to repeat himself more than once. It is definite. It is over.

 

[Apoc81]

This same question was basically on some program I watched the other day. Only, they were talking about what would happen if someone found a way to create a wormhole, and shot himself through the wormhole a few minutes before he opened it. This is basically the same as the "Grandfather Paradox".

 

Apparently, stuff like this has led some scientists to believe that time travel will always be impossible, which must mean they thought about it a lot. There are multiple theories on just how this could work.

 

So... maybe it's not that lame to think about balefiring yourself through a gateway.

 

Not time travel. Just going back in time. Time travel to the future is fairly simple once light speed is achieved. There would just never be a way back.

[Byzantine279]

This same question was basically on some program I watched the other day. Only, they were talking about what would happen if someone found a way to create a wormhole, and shot himself through the wormhole a few minutes before he opened it. This is basically the same as the "Grandfather Paradox".

 

Apparently, stuff like this has led some scientists to believe that time travel will always be impossible, which must mean they thought about it a lot. There are multiple theories on just how this could work.

 

So... maybe it's not that lame to think about balefiring yourself through a gateway.

 

Well, there is also the theory that the universe already accounts for the effects of time-traveling, meaning that in "changing" the past you only cause what already happened to happen anyway.

 

There is also the possibility of the universe splitting into two different universes, where the person who changed their past was from the universe that didn't happen in (so rather than a paradox, its simply that your past has no relation to the one you alter).

[TNine]

This same question was basically on some program I watched the other day. Only, they were talking about what would happen if someone found a way to create a wormhole, and shot himself through the wormhole a few minutes before he opened it. This is basically the same as the "Grandfather Paradox".

 

Apparently, stuff like this has led some scientists to believe that time travel will always be impossible, which must mean they thought about it a lot. There are multiple theories on just how this could work.

 

So... maybe it's not that lame to think about balefiring yourself through a gateway.

 

String theory just posits time as a fourth dimension and another as a fifth dimension. Basically, time isn't just a line, it is also a plane. Kill yourself in the past, and it will take a different route forward, meaning that the unkilled you will still be on the same point in the plane, unaffected by the new, alternate stream.

 

Since we don't have time travel, it's kind of tough to prove it doesn't exist.

 

Not time travel. Just going back in time. Time travel to the future is fairly simple once light speed is achieved. There would just never be a way back.

If you travel at light speed, there is no passage of time. Travel faster than light, you go backwards. Of course, nothing should travel faster than light, but if it did it would go backwards in time.

[Guest Nathan Mixon]

What happens when some one opens a portal to the location a few feet behind them (so the portal shows themselves in front of the portal) and shoots balefirethrough it at themselves? :wink:ANSWER IT !

 

the dark one dosent want to rule anything he wants to unweave the pattern

[TristanWebb]

The grandfather paradox is ridiculous. You would cause just as much disruption simply moving through an atmosphere as killing yourself. The universe doesn't care about life or motivation, it only cares about position, momentum and energy. If you went back in time and moved 100kg of matter you would cause just as much pollution to the time stream as pushing your dad off a cliff.

[Byzantine279]

The grandfather paradox is ridiculous. You would cause just as much disruption simply moving through an atmosphere as killing yourself. The universe doesn't care about life or motivation, it only cares about position, momentum and energy. If you went back in time and moved 100kg of matter you would cause just as much pollution to the time stream as pushing your dad off a cliff.

 

The difference is that the universe should be able to mitigate the ripple effects of random 100kg of matter so that you still existed to go back in time in the first place. On the other hand if you kill your father before you have been conceived you are doing something that directly affects your own existence, which the universe may not be able to compensate for as readily.